internet

Best Web Junk (November 21)

Japanese baseball drafts a 16 year old girl This is hilariously snarky - man tries to pay bill with spider drawing - found via everywhere on the internet

Here's a giant fish.  Just because you expect me to post this kind of stuff

This story really makes me proud to be from Kentucky.  Seriously, it's worth your time.  How many stories you gonna read about a 35 year old gramma having her house toppled over by the sheriff because it was blocking the road too long

this made me chuckle

[youtube =http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwC6LP4lvvk]

And this made me spit my drink - via myextralife

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg]

Best Web Junk (November 14)

I almost forgot to post this, I usually have my Best Web Junk set to autopost and just wasn't thinking about it. In my never ending quest to improve your vocabulary, I present this link of the 100 most oft misspelled words.

This is a serious education fail

Here is something every college basketball fan needs. Well, it will only work if you are a fan of Kentucky, Northwestern, Arizona, or Villanova.  And you will probably need to change the uniform <update> that link is gone, here is a pic of this awesome piece of taxidermy </update>

Finally, here's a video of a banana scaring people

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxy3Er0lyA]

<update> here's a funny vid I just saw.  Thanks to @DougFields for this one  </ update>

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-6ph7NWoBM]

Best Web Junk (November 7)

Whatever you do, do not share the buffet. I'm just nerdy enough to be fascinated by this post.

You are going to regret it if you don't click on this link for Olan Mills goodness

If you are a Digg user, this story comes as no surprise to you.

Which came first, the song or the vid?  Either way, good luck getting this one out of your head.

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tRzTfgds0UI]

Best thing I've seen in a while

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4]

Stolen post

I stole the content for this post from another blog.  Be warned there is nothing original here.  I was originally going to put this in best web junk, but by then it loses all its timeliness. Yesterday Ze Frank asked for political haikus.  I read them so you don't have to.  Here are my favorites...

In the serious category:

The line is so long But I know that it's worth it I'm calling in sick

I vote my world view I won't vote color or age Don't get distracted

In the humorous category:

What does the loser do with all his balloons? Is there still a party?

In the humorous but also serious category:

it's nearly over thank god the ads will end soon and we can move on

In the poignant political statement category:

When you don't reside in a swing state, it all seems so very distant.

In the completely jaded at such an early age category:

Stop bothering me About this dumb election I am not 18

And my personal favorite:

Local middle school Your gym holds our tomorrow Yet smells like fish Sticks

In the very good but not a haiku category.  (come on it's 5-7-5 people):

There goes another Perfectly good billion Dollars down the drain

Living in a swing state Suddenly my vote matters much more than before!

What You People Come Here For (October edition)

Here are the searches that brought people to my blog in October.  Enjoy this eclectic list.  I think it's awesome how stuff from different posts gets combined to bring people to the site.  Of course there were probably another 75 searches for "what's the baby using?"

  • i used to sing
  • medical fantasy football team name
  • schwab creepy animated commercials (they are creepy)
  • exploding bird poo (so glad that search brings people to my blog)
  • catchy church commercials
  • when i was 12 en espanol
  • christianity and a glass of wine a day
  • i used to sing
  • weirdest fishing adventures
  • young peach tree
  • bells palsey 1 year
  • rc boat forum go motor jeremy
  • atheist review of wild goose chase
  • wild bookin
  • loud noise bells palsy
  • baptiste volkswagen commercial
  • web junk hamster
  • should one suffering from bells palsey s (I would like to see what the rest of this is)
  • can a christian drink beer or wine
  • videos of how to grow a peach tree
  • do peaches harm?

Best Web Junk (October 31)

This is probably the best headline I've ever seen If you click through and look at these 2 photos, you will never want to board an airplane, ever.  (Unless you are very proud of your body)

This fail is really a grafitti win - best vandalism ever

One of the many reasons I don't drink is because alcohol makes you dumber, and I never met anybody who needed to get dumber

I really don't understand advertising for atheism.

It's Halloween, so you might as well play this. (It takes like a minute)

The Final Countdown on KazooKeylele - found at Jawbone Radio

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAg5KjnAhuU]

And since it's halloween, here is Mary Poppins as a horror film

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic]

Best Web Junk (October 24)

I really enjoyed Dr Horrible.  And I enjoyed all of these videos of villains applying to the evil league of evil I added this site to my RSS reader this week

If this is completely serious, then I need to write a new has the world gone crazy post

A fun game that I have been addicted to the last 3 days.  I have beaten every level except Awash, Tube, & Unpossible.  If you play this make sure to go back and look at some other player's designs.  the 5 star ones are always impressive.

I'm posting this because I've seen it everywhere this week.  I personally think it's fake, but even so, it's interesting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAyC05g0tMA]

Owner of a Lonely Heart & Smooth Criminal on violin.  This is really impressive

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.724496&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1749057%26autostart%3Dfalse%26fullscreen%3D1]

Best Web Junk (October 17)

The scariest fish story of all time.  (BTW:  There's no way I'm ever eating this kind of catfish (Not that I would eat anything that came out of a river full of dead bodies)) A messed up fail

I actually know some people who are predicting this.  But I hope it's just pessimism.

A great scene from last week's office, if you like BSG (and I do) this is awesome.  (Dumbledore Calrissian ftw)

I don't know who thought of this but they deserve some sort of nobel Prize for awesomeness

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEbyrSvxf7U]

Best Web Junk (October 10)

The 10 most confusing traffic signs in America - via Dave Barry Oh Yeah - this is a funny pic (It's possible some of my readers are not old enough to get this) - from myextralife.com

Regardless of your politics, this junk is funny.

How can we make hamburgers even more delicious?  Like this

Punchout for Wii looks so fun.  Man the music takes me back.  (I never lasted more than 2 punches with Tyson)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibFQ348YoW8]

Best Web Junk (October 3)

gross, or disturbing, or just creepy? An awesome fail

My favorite lolcat of the week

Maybe there's hope for me :-)

I'm a  big fan of expanding people's vocabulary, so enjoy this article maybe you'll learn something

Speaking of vocabulary, try to get out of the top 100 on this awesome list every so often.  This is really cool

This video is really cool.  Who wouldn't want to be the one to knock those dominoes made of dominoes down? [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.699908&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1831335%26autostart%3Dfalse%26fullscreen%3D1]

What You People Come Here For (September Edition)

This is a selection of the searches that brought people to my site in September.  Some interesting stuff here.  I particularly like "harmness of tree"  and I have no idea how some of these linked to my site.  But it appears that I'm still an internet expert on peach trees and goose hunting.  Oh the mysterious ways of google.

  • tom merritt 25
  • should a christian drink a beer or glass
  • bowing peach trees
  • shannon mathis
  • lucas oil stadium photos
  • .177 pellet gun hunting geese
  • goose shot by air gun
  • can christians drink scotch
  • how to sing la bamba
  • webjunk 5
  • a canadian goose
  • don lafontaine shares christ
  • jeremy matheis
  • killing domestic geese in park
  • tropical storms named jeremy
  • goose gun
  • alcohol helps me relax, is it safe?
  • harmness of tree
  • what do 30 mph winds feel like
  • using fantasy football insurance agents

Blogging & My Ego

The question of the day is; What the heck is wrong with me? I have been blogging now for about 8 months, and I pretty much know what my readership is.  I get roughly the same amount of hits every day.  (Except Saturday & Sunday, nobody visits then.  I do good to get 10 hits on those days.)

So here's why I wonder what is wrong with me.  I check my stats like 3 times a day.  Why do I do that?  Am I just the world's biggest narcissist, or is it normal?  I remember when I wrote my first post I quoted Scott Adams and said that starting a blog is tantamount to saying that what the world needs is more of me.  So maybe all bloggers are narcissists.

I definitely don't judge myself by the amount of friends I have on Facebook, (65 btw) or Myspace.  In general I don't care about being popular, but I sure do look at my blog stats.

I have some friends who are bloggers, maybe they can weigh in and tell me if they do the same thing.  In fact, do me a favor and give them some hits today.  Help out their numbers by clicking the links below just in case they are all as concerned about their stats as I am.

  • Adam Reed
  • John McLamb
  • Scott & Briana Underhill
  • Chuck Poe
  • Tim Schindler
  • Best Web Junk (September 26)

    Best warning sign ever. This is a headline you probably thought you'd never see.

    The best fail of the week

    I cant stand the Yankees, but I have to admit to being a bit sad about Yankee Stadium closing.  This is so cool.

    This is pretty neat

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLNfN6-eA0g]

    Portal is one of the few games that I have played through more than once.  It's fun funny and clever, and it has the best ending of all time.  This is a fan video of the song "Alive" from the closing credits.

    [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.698969&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1612411%26server%3Dvimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D0%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3D%26context_id%3D%26force_embed%3D0%26multimoog%3D%26color%3D00ADEF]

    The cake is a lie

    Best Web Junk (September 19)

    If you are a  Simpsons fan, this map is amazing a new monster

    A duck scared of water?  Maybe because it's a Chicken in disguise

    The best of GraphJam this week

    A very difficult game (at least for me)

    Since my other post was about politics this week, here's a high quality rant from Craig Ferguson

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRVQ4xwwmQ]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1good-Ifdg]

    Before & After

    I hoped that my spike from "What's the baby using?" would translate in to more readers of my blog on a regular basis.  You remember this image from before: Before the spike

    What I hoped was that a few people would read more of my blog than just the one post and maybe stick around.  "What's the Baby using?" is by far my most popular post ever, and I really improved my numbers, but it is well & truly over now.  I thought I would share my new stat graph before the spike disappears forever.

    After the spike

    The trend is not completely over, I still have never had a day when that particular post got 0 hits, even though my blog has fallen to 8th place in a google search for "what's the baby using?"  Tom Merritt mentioned it on Buzz Out Loud about a week ago (and Jason didn't know what he was talking about), and Len, the man who created the meme, himself commented on this post, and put an update on his site.

    And there's this

    Thanks to all of you who visited.

    [polldaddy poll="932295"]

    The Political State of Affairs

    This post on politics will probably not be what you expect.  That post is coming either tomorrow or Thursday.  But since this is my first ever post about politics, please go to the * and read my disclaimer. This is an election year.  For me it's a year to vote for governor and US Senator as well as another office you may have heard of, President of the United States.  One of the interesting phenomenons that is a part of the election process is the coverage in the media. 

    I am not writing this post to simply complain about the coverage, although I am not happy. I already know the situation. In college I was a political science major. Part of studying poly sci in this age (even though I was in college last century) is studying politics in the mass media. Although there is a new form of mass media since I was in college, these lessons are still useful.

    The first lesson about politics in mass media is about the practice of negative campaigning. (The Willie Horton ad is the most famous attack ad of all time.)  The short summary of negative campaigning is this – it works – very well. And refuting the messages in attack ads does not work – at all. So how do you combat negative ads?  With negative ads, of course. People all say that they hate them, but they work, so they are not going anywhere.  Get used to them.  BTW, now you can recognize an attack ad before it begins because the "I'm ___ ____, and I approved this message" is at the beginning rather than at the end as a way of separating the candidate's name from the negative ad.

    Song Chart Memes

    Here’s the second thing to learn about politics in mass media, the news only covers the election as a horse race. For example, if one candidate comes out with a huge policy statement, lets say he is rolling out his policy on terrorism. Here’s is the coverage you will get on the news on every level. A brief summary of the plan, nothing that would ever take longer than 15 seconds, maybe some bullet points, and quite a lot of discussion of how the plan will affect the candidates standings in the polls. The closer the election gets, the less talk of anything substantive. The coverage becomes only stories of new polls and how a particular candidates latest move will affect their standings.  After a debate, the number 1 question will always be; "who won?" Nobody covers what they actually said, unless it was incredibly stupid. Watch and see as we get closer to November.

    The world we now live in is slightly different than when I was in college. Now we have the internet. (We had the internet when I was in college, but it was video free and blog free.  It was a very different web.)  A quick perusal of digg on any day, (Go there now, I’d bet there are at least 3 of the top 10 stories on politics (and probably negative about McCain/Palin)) or the top technorati tags or wordpress tags will show you what is popular. And politics is very popular. The problem with the internet is that so much of what we see and is popular is what is called an echo chamber. It’s people blogging about something somebody else already blogged. Then, rumors and half-truths become so popular that nobody can tell them from the truth. I still know people who believe the Obama is a Muslim who refuses to say the pledge of allegiance, and Palin’s youngest child is actually her grandchild. Nobody believes it because of any proof or reason, but because they heard it so often. That is the major problem with the internet as a news source, so much of it is just a giant echo chamber. Over half my posts are just linking to videos or other stuff. And my blog is an actual blog with original content a couple of times a week. Of the thousands & thousands of typepad, wordpress and blogger blogs, I would love to see what percentage contain original content as opposed to reposts of links of stuff from around the web. (BTW – That is why there will always be a need for professional journalists, Their form may just change from newspapers to the web.)

    Finally I believe there is a greater influence of celebrity now than there has been in the past. Celebrities have always been involved with politics, but it seems like now there is either much more news about them, or somehow they get much more attention. In just the last week, Matt Damon, Pamela Anderson, and Lindsay Lohan have all publicly bashed Sarah Palin. Every time it makes headlines, and people seem to care.

    [polldaddy poll="929433"]

    * Although I am a staff member of LaGrange Park Baptist Church, the views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not that of the church.  They may not be construed as an endorsement or attack on any candidate or party on behalf of the church.  They are my views as an individual.

    Best Web Junk (September 12)

    First, this is the best thing I have read all week Is there anyone who doesn't want to wake up to the smell of bacon?

    You've always wanted to know, now here's the chance to pull of the heist of the century and learn one of the world's most valuable secrets

    Here's another awesome link from engadget

    My favorite link of the week - http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

    And a very interesting vid from Adam of the Mythbusters to make up for last week's disappointing link involving the mythbusters - via myextralife

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XbjFn3aqE]

    What To Do When I Have No Inspiration For Blogging

    I think the problem is that I blogged every day last week.  (Adam did just the opposite.)  Now I have nothing fresh on my mind.    So I'll go ahead and post a video plus what would have been the last paragraph from best web junk Sep 12. For some reason I am very entertained by lipdub videos.  (Even though I often don't like the music.)  The most famous are this one and this one.  But the one below is my favorite, and I saw it for the first time last week.

    [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.682841&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1287067%26server%3Dvimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D0%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3D%26context_id%3D%26force_embed%3D0%26multimoog%3D%26color%3D00ADEF]

    That "HD" vimeo video is pretty impressive.

    Best Web Junk (September 5)

    This looks awesome but it didn't work for me, In fact I don't think it's finished.  I put in names I associate with a place like Wang, Patel, Mohammed, and Gonzalez, but no matter what, the same 10 countries light up.  I may put it in best web junk again in the future as it gets closer to completion.  But for now you can see the US top 5000 names here.  (My name is 585th) A story about dirty words that aren't dirty contains this awesome paragraph:

    Rudimentary versions of this software do not just replace obscene words, but also alter longer words which contain banned letter combinations, so "assassination" becomes "buttbuttination", "passenger" becomes "pbuttenger", and "passerby" becomes "pbutterby".

    Unknowingly I've been living by this for a long time.  if they would just add Scrabulous to the list

    This article is very interesting.  It is interesting that some of these ever caught on, but is is definitely worth your time - via digg

    I was planning to post the vid that is the subject of this article this week, but I guess I won't since it's all a lie.

    silly vid

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEr34dOR2Q]